It has not by any means been a good summer in the Netherlands. It's been very wet and the last few days have also been extremely windy. At work, on the streets and on the roads, there is a tension. I try to take the time to go out for a lunchtime walk at least a couple of times a week and took this photo last week during a gap in the rain. And we head towards the summer break, make sure to take some time to relax before you face the serious business of relaxation. I'm taking a break for a few weeks myself and will be back again in September. Lots to look forward to then including the (for me) much awaited return of the Fast Flow Conference in London. Over a year has passed since the last Fast Flow Conference and in my mind a lot has changed. I no longer view the software world as problem that needs to be fixed, and don't believe that "Flow" is the answer. I believe we simply that we need to embrace the chaos a little bit more in a constructive and personal manner. More on that later in the year. In the meantime I wish you a peaceful summer and that you find the time to rest and recharge this summer. We Don’t Want Utopia: Just A Stress-free Day at WorkPublished on July 14, 2024 Following up on the ideas I talked about in Writing Software Is a Political Act, I discovered Andrew Harmel-Law’s math blog where I found this picture from XKCD. This made me chuckle but it also made me think – where does the software engineer end up in this picture of the universe? Are we looking… Read More »We Don’t Want Utopia: Just A Stress-free Day at Work
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“Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration... Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.” – Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life You're receiving this because you subscribed to receive updates about "Human Software" or you're on my Human DevOps mailing list. The summer season is upon us. Originally I was aiming to have some early chapters of my debut novel "Human Software" available to...
I lived in London in 1997 when the Tony Blair "New Labour" government swept into power. It was a time of great hope and audacity. It felt like "we" could do anything, but then I was 25 years old and living in London, and indeed, anything did, in fact, feel possible because I was at the dawn of my career without responsibilities or the weight of history behind my thoughts and actions. So perhaps older and wiser, we are here. The UK has been (according to some) bitten down by 14 years of Tory...
Do you always want more? More opportunities, more recognition for your work, more advancement? Sometimes, it's just knowing more, solving problems, and being right. What do we do to ourselves as software engineers and programmers that makes us want to do more all the time? We want to know more, write more, read more and perhaps even present more. I was interacting with someone on LinkedIn this Friday, and it made me reflect on what I am doing now compared to what I did a year ago. A year ago,...